An illustration of what the Philae lander will look like at work on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. AOES Medialab/ESA hide caption
Solar System
Part of the ALMA array on the Chajnantor plateau of Chile points skyward to the Milky Way, our own galaxy. The center of our galaxy is visible as a yellowish bulge crossed by dark lanes, which are themselves huge clouds of interstellar dust. José Francisco Salgado/ESO hide caption
Your direct connection with the stars and all of the space in between them. iStockphoto.com hide caption
A bubble in space: Abell 39 marks the death of a star like the sun. Wind from the aging central star pushes into the surrounding interstellar gas, building up a dense shell that glows blue in this image. After 36 years of travel, the Voyager spacecraft is just now reaching the edge of the sun's own wind-blown bubble. WIYN/NOAO/NSF hide caption
This artist rendering provided by NASA shows Voyager 1 at the edge of the solar system. AP hide caption
Will we need to tread lightly, in deference to the locals, when finally do make it to Mars? Pat Rawlings/SAIC/NASA hide caption
Debris: friend or foe? Both! Illustration/NASA hide caption
An artist's imagination Saturn's orange moon Titan. Steven Hobbs/NASA hide caption
An artist's impression of a gamma-ray burst, a powerful jet of energy lasting from less than a second to several minutes. The most powerful events in the universe, they are thought to be mostly associated with the explosion of stars that collapse into black holes. A. Roquette/ESO hide caption